


Coming Out Of The Cold.

by moth2fic



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-13
Updated: 2007-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:45:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth2fic/pseuds/moth2fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story set within an established relationship, diverging from canon after Season 1 and providing an ending at odds both with Season 2 and with associated series. Gene and Sam investigate a case together. Will their relationship survive into the future?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Out Of The Cold.

**Author's Note:**

> The BBC own the characters but I have taken them down a different road. The BBC do not own the location; I know because I live there, and have done since before 1973.
> 
> My thanks are due to m31andy for a rapid and efficient beta.

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Sam watched Gene. Watched him carefully, curiously, affectionately. Watching other people work was always enlightening. Gene was as impatient and arrogant with the papers on his desk as he was with the people who passed in front of it. But that was all a façade, meticulously built and maintained.

 

Sam knew. He knew because of the time when Gene had turned up at his door at a ridiculous time of night, drunk and angry, words spilling and spitting out of him. Sam had sat him down on the bed, pointed two fingers at the girl on the switched off screen, and listened. It appeared that Gene had been turned on by the sight of Sam naked and tied to the bed. Seriously turned on, enough so to start to question his innermost desires and prejudices and to come telling Sam all about the results of that particular interrogation. After which things had got very interesting in a fashion that proved a single bed could accommodate two people quite easily, even when one of them was the size of Gene. The secret was in getting very, very close.

 

Since then, they’d been close as often as possible. Gene’s wife had finally got tired of waiting for him to come home and was, instead, waiting for a divorce, citing mental cruelty and constructive desertion or something similar. (Sam thought, or hoped, that she thought Gene slept at work or not exactly at work; in the workplace, after hours). Not that they always used Sam’s flat. When they felt the need to stretch out a little there were hotels out in Cheshire where their faces weren’t known and there had been one idyllic weekend in the Lake District. Only one. Gene wasn’t keen on holidays, wasn’t sympathetic to requests for leave and rarely took leave himself, so Sam had known the two-night stay in Windermere had been a signal honour. They’d stopped bothering with hotels, recently. Gene insisted on booking a twin rather than a double so they ended up with the same problem as in the flat.

 

They were almost a couple; in the closet, of course. Gene hadn’t understood that bit of twenty first century speak at first. Then he had firmly agreed with it and offered to search out extra and better keys. Sam had to keep reminding himself of when he was. The era wasn’t so much homophobic as freaked out (another incomprehensible term) by any deviation from the norm or what was perceived as the norm. Nobody really believed there were ‘poofters’ in ordinary places, like Stockport or Altrincham. In nightclubs, perhaps, or as models for glossy magazines and catalogues but not in the pub, on the train or at the football match. Not anywhere normal people gathered.

 

They were wrong, of course, but it would be thirty years or so before the world woke up.

 

Meanwhile, Sam watched Gene fondly and, waiting for him to finish the paper work so that they could go, answered the phone casually, never thinking it would be anything other than another department wanting some sort of last minute clarification of something. And was flung headlong into a new case.

 

 

 

The voice on the phone sounded frightened, broken. It was a man, or a boy, who sounded young, too young to have that bitter sickening tone. Sam listened. They, the young man and his friend, were students who’d been thrown out of their flat. No details were given; there was no time. They were in a pub and they knew that when they came out trouble was waiting. They needed help fast. They’d called 999 and been put through to Sam by mistake by the operator. Sam’s immediate reaction was that he should redirect the call to someone in uniform, then he listened harder. Somehow, his 2006 gaydar was working well through the 1973 telephone system. And the pub was on the way home. Sort of. If you took the scenic route. Besides, uniform might treat this pair as badly as the bloke threatening them would and there wasn’t, by the sound of it, time to find a sympathetic constable. Sam wasn’t a Sir Galahad by nature but this case felt as if it had his name on it. By the time he’d calmed the voice and taken more details, Gene was standing at his shoulder.

 

‘I thought we were going for a Chinese. Soon as I’d finished.’

 

‘We are. After we’ve been for these kids. Not Chinese, by the sound of them.’ Gene gave him a strange look and Sam remembered that there were very few Chinese around. Just a few, in scattered restaurants and the beginnings of Chinatown in the city centre. No arch, no New Year parade, no comfortable middle class community shopping in the Chinese supermarkets at the weekend and no huge Chinese hypermarket out towards Ashton. And the ones that were around tended to speak broken English with confused ‘l’s and ‘r’s, not the almost local speech that would be favoured by their children.

 

Sam filled him in on the phone call. Gene wanted to send someone else but there was no-one still around so they couldn’t delegate the job. That was one of the perils of working late; the other, that they would end up in a clinch in Gene’s office, careless of what the cleaners might see, was off the menu tonight. Not that it even crossed their minds often. Gene’s closet had strong walls. So they argued for a minute, Sam wanting to play at knights and dragons, Gene on the side of police hierarchy and the right thing to do.

‘It could be us.’ The words came out almost plaintively. Sam’s landlord probably didn’t know Sam, let alone his secret lodger but he had a point and they were theoretically off duty. Maybe they could get a beer at this pub and Gene could bawl out the phone operator in the morning. With luck, nobody need ever know two senior detectives had answered a call for help on 999. Wondering why he could never say ‘No’ to Sam, Gene sighed and shrugged into his coat.

 

 

 

The Red Lion in Withington was a popular student pub, as much so in 1973 as it had been in 1963 and would be still in 2003. Set back off the main road, an old but well maintained building, it shone with the promise of good cheer and good beer in equal quantities. The caller had promised to wait inside. There was a puppy tied to a drainpipe near the main entrance, barking in a hopeless sort of way at everyone who went in and out. It was a bundle of cream fluff with feet almost as big as its head. Sam wondered idly what it would grow into then shook his head and followed Gene into the saloon bar. Gene was flashing his police identity and two young men rose, relief on their faces, and came towards him. Behind Sam, a sharp yip told him someone’s foot had connected with the pup and at the same time one of the young men started towards the door, an agonised expression replacing the relief. Their pup then; that made three of them homeless and in trouble.

 

Sam was outside in time to see a large man, quite well dressed and nearly middle-aged, raise his foot again to the pup. It didn’t get there. Instead, Sam caught the foot and held it off the ground, showing his police badge in his other hand. The man’s mouth dropped open in surprise but as the pup’s owner came round from behind Sam to hold and soothe his pet, the man recovered and twisted his foot out of Sam’s grasp.

 

‘Surprised you’re defending one of them,’ he snarled. ‘Want to get about your work, you do. Keeping the streets clean. Sweeping up muck like that.’ He indicated the pet owner and managed to stop himself aiming another kick at the cowering, whimpering animal. Something told him the officer was not in favour of cruelty to animals. Sam put on his best police officer voice and explained that kicking defenceless animals was an offence, no matter whom they belonged to. Then he asked if the younger man wanted to press charges. A head of dark curls was shaken vigorously and the incident seemed on the way to being over, but at that moment Gene came out, with the other young man, a handsome blond with the carriage of a sportsman or fitness fanatic. He immediately put an arm round his friend, awkwardly because the friend had his own arms full of large puppy. The puppy kicker vanished, rapidly, while three pairs of eyes turned appealingly to Sam and Gene.

 

‘Thank you. And thank you for coming so quickly. That could have been us. It’s awful that Crackers had to suffer but at least you were in time.’ He turned to his friend. ‘I assume it was Moynihan?’

 

‘Yes, and he’s gone, thank goodness. Couldn’t do much with the police here. But I don’t know how far he’s gone, and Crackers is hurt, and ...’ There were tears in the dark eyes. Gene took charge of the situation and got them all, dog included, into the car. On the way to the PDSA the story came out in fits and starts. The students, Martin and Gary, were flatmates. ‘Well,’ Sam thought, ‘more than just flatmates,’ but he let it pass. Moynihan was not actually the landlord but the landlord’s agent, collecting the rent, sorting out any repairs, dealing with complaints. Someone had complained about them. A noisy party. There was an aside, at that point, about the neighbours, thought to be ‘working girls’ who had taxis calling at all hours, sometimes coming to the wrong doors.

‘And nobody,’ Gary finished, shaking his blond head, ‘ever complains about them.’

 

Anyway, Moynihan had thrown them out, literally. He had just come round, given them half an hour to pack their belongings (the flat was furnished) and watched while they did it, presumably to check they didn’t ‘accidentally’ pack any of the quite awful crockery or pans. Then he’d called them a cab and told them to get gone as far as possible. And yes, they knew they could have appealed but the landlord wasn’t answering his phone, the housing department was closed, it was Friday and the university accommodation office wouldn’t be interested till Monday morning. Besides, Moynihan had threatened them. Physically? Yes, and Crackers too. That had broken Martin’s nerve and that in turn had made Gary cave in. They’d dumped their cases and Crackers’ bowl, in a carrier bag, at the left luggage office at Piccadilly station, and come back out to Withington hoping to meet up with some friends who might put them up. Stupid, in retrospect, because Moynihan or one of his friends must have seen them.

 

They’d got a message delivered by the bar man in an envelope, just as if the corner table was a real address. They hadn’t done as they were told and now they were in for it when they stuck their noses outside the pub. And they knew he meant it. The previous week some friends of theirs had been badly beaten up and there was a suspicion Moynihan was behind it. They’d been in another of the flats he managed and had been in the process of moving elsewhere when they’d been attacked. Gary, at least, had almost expected the eviction. No, they hadn’t reported their friends’ beating to the police. Why? They hadn’t really expected help but tonight they’d been so scared and there was Crackers. At the mention of his name the pup whimpered again.

 

What they didn’t say was almost as important as what they did and by the time they finished Sam was seething. He thought Gene was seething too, but it was difficult to tell. A raised coat collar and concentration on traffic could hide a lot of emotion. He vowed silently that Mr. Moynihan was going to be disabused of his notion that he could beat up kids and dogs with impunity. Because they were just kids, students, new to the city, still wet behind the ears, despite their obvious adult relationship. But for now, Crackers was the important one.

 

 

 

The vet was interested and caring. Sam supposed he would have to be both to work in the centre. Free treatment for pets whose owners couldn’t afford private care wouldn’t pay well. Martin explained hesitantly that Crackers was a birthday present from his sister who knew he’d always wanted one and hadn’t thought forward to vets’ bills, or even food. That, said the vet, somewhat drily, explained what a poverty stricken student was doing with a baby Afghan hound. He examined the little creature gently and said there was nothing broken. Bruises were the worst of it but there were other problems. The puppy, it seemed, had an irregular heartbeat and a mineral deficiency. Martin went white, but the vet said he thought they could sort things out. Where did they get him? A kennels in Northenden? Could they tell him the name? Only, the police might be very interested.

 

The police, in the persons of Gene and Sam, were waiting to take the lads to a hostel of some sort for the night, and were not disposed to be immediately interested. Sam had almost persuaded Gene that having got this far they could offer Crackers accommodation till the morning. Gene had been muttering about not being a taxi service or an animal charity but Sam knew he was only grumbling for the sake of it; knew he wasn’t about to leave this lot stranded. The vet, Luke Johnson according to his name badge, was persuasive.

 

The story he told them was worrying to any animal lover, and to anyone concerned with fraud and deceit. Someone was running a very dodgy puppy farm. Sam had heard of puppy farming in his past or future life but hadn’t realised that the dubious practice went so far back. The majority of dog breeders were always dog lovers who made very little money from their work. After feeding, inoculating and caring for the pups and their mothers, there was little profit. But the business was potentially profitable provided you didn’t care for the health of mothers or pups, used low grade foodstuffs, poor housing and bedding and cut down on veterinary bills including inoculations. And provided that if some of the pups resulting from the lack of care were flawed, you hid the flaws and sold them anyway, to unsuspecting purchasers who just saw a puppy, loved it, and paid whatever you asked.

 

It was big business by 2000 but back in the seventies it had already appealed to a certain type of businessman. They were clever, the puppy farmers, moving their operations as soon as they thought anyone was catching up with them, selling their products just slightly cheap so that customers were less likely to complain if anything went wrong, and then leaving no address when they moved. Crackers had probably been one of a big litter, with a mother worn out by constant pregnancies, housed in a cold, damp concrete box, badly fed and never shown any love at all. Crackers would have been born with deficiencies, and these would not have been remedied by his mother’s thin milk or by the cheap food, scraps mostly, he’d have got once he was eating solids. There could be worse side effects, too, such as deformed organs, or Crackers’ heart problem.

 

So far, it was a matter for the RSPCA, but Johnson hardly needed to point out the obvious. The criminals who dealt this way with dogs did so to make money; money that was fed through into other criminal activities. It was also a perfect way to launder money. These were big time villains, not simply ignorant dog owners. Gene and Sam promised to do something about the Northenden place. Tomorrow.

 

Now it was time to take Martin and Gary to collect their belongings and find them a place to stay. The YMCA was unlikely to let them spend the night together but it would certainly give them a bed, or rather, beds, while they sorted out something better. On Monday, the University would step in and help. It was only as they parked the car outside Sam’s flat that Gene realised they were stuck with Crackers for the whole weekend.

 

 

 

 

There is barely room for two adult men in a single bed and the addition of an Afghan puppy makes everything impossible. Crackers, they gathered, did not know about dogs sleeping on the floor or, if he did, was determined not to let the knowledge affect him. Sam had been tired but was now wide awake. Gene was awake too, occasionally fidgeting, trying to find a comfortable way to accommodate Crackers and failing. Crackers was asleep.

‘Tell me again. Just why are we doing this, Sam?’

‘I told you; they could be us.’

‘Speak for yourself. I’ve never been that young and innocent.’

‘Innocent?’

‘You know what I mean. Doubt if you ever were either, despite those soulful eyes.’

‘Not quite. But they’ve had a raw deal. Victims of prejudice. That could be us, however careful we are.’

‘Just the point. We _are _careful. They aren’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It shrieks at you. Nobody could see them and not realise. Idiots.’

‘Still no reason to throw them into the street and either Moynihan or the landlord must have known when they first moved in. Why now?’

‘Maybe they got the place through the accommodation office. Maybe they never met anyone.’

‘Raw deal, whatever, and I still think they could be us.’ Crackers wriggled in his sleep as Sam spoke, his oversized paws making chasing movements that all but pushed Sam out of bed.

‘That does it. I’m trying, goodness knows why, to share a bed with my lover and a dog. I will _not _share it with the dog on its own.’ Gene switched on the bedside lamp and sat up. He bundled the puppy in the quilt and dumped it on the floor where, to their amazement, it remained asleep. Now they only needed to get warm without covers, which was fairly easy, and afterwards they held each other close.

 

 

 

Saturday and Sunday didn’t seem like the best days to go after the puppy farmers as neither of them had any desire to spend the entire weekend on police business. But they did some research, looking at adverts in the local papers, driving through Northenden and checking the address they’d got from Martin. He had collected Crackers from a place that had seemed like a pleasant farm. Pups for sale would, of course, be brought to comfortable surroundings to be seen, sold, and taken away. Sam was surprised at how much farmland still existed around that side of Manchester in the seventies. Maybe it still did. Tracts of farmland could nestle unsuspected behind rows of shops and houses. These were greenfield sites. Farms.

 

On Monday they took Crackers into the station and let him explore the contents of Gene’s waste basket, already half full of what Gene considered junk mail by ten o’clock, while they told the team about Friday night, explaining both the dog’s presence and the new crusade. Annie was almost tearful, Chris was full of righteous indignation and Ray was instantly appreciative of the ‘big crime’ link. Phyllis was happy to dog sit during the day until such time as Martin should phone to say he had a home where he could have his dog. Sam noticed that Gene was careful not to mention the reason for the eviction.

 

They picked up Luke Johnson, knowing they would need his evidence if they got into the farm, and headed for Northenden. As they neared the farm a man slipped into a gap in a hedge, to avoid the car in the narrow lane. Sam did a quick double take.

‘That was Moynihan.’ He sounded certain and Gene didn’t question him but he did ask why on earth Moynihan would be there. They were soon to learn. Before they reached the farm a large Mercedes met them head on in the lane. Theoretically, the police had right of way but the driver of the Merc simply leant on his horn and waited. They backed to the nearest wide spot, wandering why they were intimidated by the trappings of wealth even while they were investigating one of the ways it was obtained but after all, the lane led to a number of farms and houses; the Merc owner might well be a resident who expected to be able to make an easy exit. When they finally reached the farm, Moynihan met them in the capacity of agent. The owner had, he explained somewhat lugubriously, left without paying the rent. Perhaps the police could help? And what was he to do about the dogs?

 

There were a dozen of them. Five Afghans, a Rotweiler, four Dobermans and two tiny Pekes. All bitches, all in a bedraggled, dirty, hungry state and all lactating. But there were no pups. Luke called the RSPCA to come and help while Chris and Ray searched the premises to check that the pups had not merely been dumped, alive or dead. They hadn’t. They would no doubt be heading for another city and unsuspecting owners like Martin.

 

Moynihan was happy to provide details of his absent tenant but Sam was dubious about their use. False name, references, and previous addresses were more than likely. He disliked feeling indebted to Moynihan. The man made him deeply angry. Kicking dogs and evicting kids were not admirable traits. However, he had been helpful and apparently honest. Now there would be research and paperwork to deal with and they headed back to the station. Crackers was still in residence, eating part of a sandwich that had no doubt been intended for Phyllis’s lunch. He barked once, to welcome them, then turned back to the ham that had been tendered by his latest goddess.

 

 

 

Late in the afternoon Martin rang. The university had found them a new flat and the landlord was happy to take dogs, but the place wouldn’t be free until Wednesday. It seemed like awful cheek, but could they possibly ...? Gene rolled his eyes when Sam told him but didn’t say anything so at home time Crackers was duly loaded into the back of the car. Sam thought the others assumed he just got a lift home from Gene. Neither of them ever said anything to indicate otherwise. For that matter, they said little about it to each other, and after all these months, maybe it was time to acknowledge that they were living together and find somewhere bigger, big enough to take a double bed, but talking about it seemed to be tempting fate. For Gene it would mean admitting that this was more than an aberrant fling whilst for Sam the question of how long he’d be around would inevitably be a factor in any decision.

 

They bought two tins of puppy food and some biscuits on the way home.

‘There are kennels for this sort of emergency.’ Gene didn’t sound as though he would push the matter.

‘After what we just saw, you can say the word ‘kennel’?’

‘That was different. I meant places where people leave their pets when they go on holiday.’

‘But they aren’t on holiday and they can’t afford it. Kennels, I mean. Holidays, either, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘So they dump their problems on the police force?’

‘They didn’t. We took them on. And he’s cute.’

‘No!’ Said loudly and emphatically.

‘No what?’ Sam enjoyed teasing Gene.

‘We aren’t getting a dog.’

‘I know. We’re out all hours, nowhere to leave it, nowhere for it to play. I wouldn’t really. But I like dogs.’ Sam grinned and Gene just grunted, but he was careful with the puppy when they helped it out of the car and took it indoors. Crackers had decided he lived here, in Sam’s flat. Everything in it belonged to him, especially Gene’s slippers. He didn’t bring them so much as haul them along, having chewed them out on the way, to be presented for judgement. Gene’s judgement was unprintable but it made Sam laugh. Crackers was unperturbed. He was busy investigating his right front paw, wondering if it belonged to him and whether it was the right size. He turned it this way and that, with such a puzzled expression that even Gene laughed, and binned the slippers.

‘Don’t throw his toys away!’ Sam rescued the slippers. Gene rolled his eyes to the ceiling and Crackers received the slippers as his due.

 

 

 

The next day, Ray was dispatched to interview the couple who’d been beaten up. Sam, who was still anxious to get something on Moynihan, persuaded Gary and Martin to give their friends’ address. The rest of the team were spending what time they could spare trying to link the puppy farm to other criminal activity in the area. It was Chris who was doing most of the phoning and collating filed information. Annie was out on another case, and Sam and Gene sat speculating over a cup of coffee. Working together was all the more stimulating now that they were lovers. Unresolved sexual tension no longer got in the way of thought, and they found they thought alike, and could bounce ideas off each other, making them an excellent team. They explained it to the others as the result of experience but didn’t elaborate. Crackers lay at their feet and added his opinion in occasional soft barks, in between the main focus of his afternoon, which was the attempt to reduce a pile of scrap paper to its original pulp state. Every so often Gene or Sam would throw him another screwed up ball of unwanted document and he would dutifully chew on it. Life was good.

 

Ray came back late. He had spent the day following the couple, Simon and Richard, round the university campus, always just missing them as they moved from lecture to seminar to cafeteria and back to lectures again. Eventually he found them back at their new flat and interrogated them, non-too sympathetically after his frustrating afternoon.

‘Brought it on themselves, didn’t they?’ he asked the room at large. Gene raised an eyebrow and waited for clarification, which came in a torrent of homophobic hatred. Ray would never behave like Moynihan but it was clear where his sympathies lay. It obviously irked him to say that so far as he could see it was Moynihan and a friend who’d administered the beating. Then he began to write his report, adding as he picked up a pen,

‘Even the dog was a stupid bit of faggot nonsense. A lapdog. I ask you! For two blokes.’

‘What sort of lapdog?’ Sam heard warning bells ringing but maybe he just disliked Moynihan and was making five out of two and two.

‘How on earth should I know what kind it was. Silly squashed in face, tail like a bunch of chicken feathers, nearly bit me.’

‘Could it have been a Peke? A Pekingese?’

‘Could have been a dustbrush for all I know.’ Ray looked back at his forms and Sam dropped it for the time being. By the morning they'd have the photographs that they’d taken at the puppy farm. Not for the first time, he wished he had the technology of 2006 at his disposal. It would have to wait but he had a bad feeling about this case and it wouldn’t go away.

 

 

By evening the feeling had grown and even Crackers couldn’t cheer him up. Gene got fish and chips and a couple of bottles of beer and they ate in a silence that should have been comfortable but instead was gloomy and swirling with unvoiced worries. Afterwards, Gene opened the window to get rid of the smell before it could permeate everything and fed Crackers while Sam sat staring at the television. It was off but the screen girl was tugging at Sam with unusual urgency, pointing to a patch of darkness on the horizon and trying to hurry him. By the time they got to bed Sam was trembling. The trembling increased when Gene took him in his arms so that even Gene had to be aware that something was badly wrong. Crackers was growling at the black screen and wouldn’t settle. Sam continued to shake.

‘What on earth ..?’ Gene had little hope of an answer. Sam sometimes had these bouts of misery and never said anything Gene could understand.

‘Just ... I know they’re young ...but they’ve got their whole lives ahead of them ...and I don’t know how long we ...’

‘Not about to walk out on you, am I?’ Gene’s voice was gruff and soft at the same time.

‘Not you. Me. If anything happens ...’

‘Not on about that again, are you?’ Gene was not what Sam would call a believer. Ray and Chris had just laughed when they’d understood what Sam was trying to tell them. Put it down to a beer-induced dream. Annie took him more seriously but thought he should forget it and make the best of what he had here and now. Gene had listened, and thought and made up his mind that it was all due to untreated concussion from the accident on the day of Sam’s arrival. Couldn’t be shifted from his opinion. But he was at least sympathetic when it didn’t involve Sam keeping him awake with his worries. He refused to look into Sam’s non-existent past, saying any records could and did disappear - every day. Well known phenomenon.

‘So if I disappear one day ...’

‘I’ll search heaven and hell for you.’

‘And if I’m not there?’

‘According to you, you will be there in my future. I’ll only be seventy in 2006, you know. Don’t plan on dying young. Find you and keep you as a ...’

‘Toy boy?’

‘What?’

‘A ridiculously younger lover.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Promise?’ Sam felt like pushing his luck.

Go to sleep, Sam.’ Then, as Sam snuggled closer to him and the trembling gradually stilled, ‘You think too much.’

 

 

 

By Tuesday lunchtime (Crackers took advantage of the furore to get half a pork pie down his throat) Chris had linked Moynihan to possible involvement in other beatings, and evictions but had also found the owner of the farm, a dog breeder called Stevens, according to Moynihan, to be a total fiction. A cover for Moynihan himself and probably a cover for a great deal of criminal activity. Most of the other evictions had involved dogs, too, so there was every chance Moynihan was trying to cover his tracks, intimidate his customers, or both.

‘IRA?’ Chris was half eager, half scared to find himself in a high profile case.

‘Doubt it. I reckon Moynihan’s only interest in independence is his own.’ Gene didn’t think they’d stumbled on an Irish plot. Sam had to remind himself that the Irish were the current threat, not people with Arabic sounding names. He hadn’t had the faintest worry about terrorist implications and now was glad his partner thought them unlikely.

They spent the rest of the day getting the evidence sorted. Nobody wanted Moynihan to get away, least of all Crackers, who helped by the occasional bark and a raid on the packet of custard creams by the coffee maker.

 

Gene was humming the Beatles’ number ‘When I’m 64’. Sam wasn’t a Beatles fan but Gene’s record collection from the mid sixties included the psychedelically sleeved hit album and Sam had listened to it often enough to recognise the tune. He grinned at the implications and the link to their conversation of the previous night. It was good to feel sure of Gene. He felt better, though there was a dark cloud somewhere in the back of his mind.

 

He was quite sad to part with the puppy the following morning, and suspected Gene’s theatrical sigh of relief was just window dressing. Martin and Gary were touchingly grateful. Sam gave them a rather guarded update on Moynihan’s possible arrest. He didn’t want them worrying; their new flat was in Didsbury and that was near enough Moynihan’s stamping grounds to be a concern. Both students stammered their thanks for the rescue and the puppy’s care.

‘We thought the police would be unsympathetic, but you’ve been great.’ Gary grinned at Sam as they left. ‘ I don’t think the officer who interviewed Simon and Richard was too friendly but you, well...But I don’t think your colleague exactly approves of us.’ He looked back towards Gene’s office. Sam was tempted to explain that Gene was rather more than a colleague, but discretion won.

‘Just try to keep a low profile.’ He wanted to add that things would improve in a few years, that by the time they were in their fifties they might be signing a civil partnership, but he knew nobody wanted Old Moore’s Almanac from a policeman and he contented himself with giving Crackers a last stroke.

 

 

 

 

They drove out to the farm, Chris and Ray in a blue and white, Sam and Gene in the Cortina. As they reached the lane, the Merc came out, travelling fast. There were two men in it and one of them, the passenger, looked like Moynihan. Without any consultation the police cars turned to follow, gut instinct telling all of them that this was a getaway, that Moynihan knew, somehow, that he’d been rumbled. Maybe someone Chris had contacted had done a bit of phoning in his turn. Whatever, they had a warrant for the man’s arrest and were determined to execute it.

 

Sam’s bad feelings were growing by the second. Something about this case ...He laid a hand on Gene’s thigh, earning himself a very raised eyebrow. The interior of the car might be private but they were at work, the eyebrow said. Still, he felt the need for contact. The Merc had speeded up and both police cars were close behind. They were heading south, maybe south east, probably for the A6 and a straight run out into Derbyshire, requiring the police to liaise with another force. There was plenty of traffic and they were dodging and weaving now. Sam noticed the place where the M60 would cross their route and had time to regret not knowing what had happened to the other puppies when the car swung out of control as a determined lorry insisted it, and not the Cortina, owned the road. Then everything was dark.

 

 

............................

 

 

Sam was anxious to get back to work. They hadn’t been too keen on an early release after such a long coma and although he was declared fit enough to go home, active duty was another matter. He’d had plenty of time to think in hospital and to ask questions that it appeared wouldn’t be answered until he had the authority of his badge again. So it was a relief when the police board finally cleared him for work on the advice of their own medical experts and said he could go back in January. Two weeks of idleness stretched ahead of him till then.

 

He didn’t try to tell anyone about his experiences. The only person he’d told, his consultant in Tameside General, had agreed that some coma patients reported extraordinarily detailed dreams. That would be everyone’s reaction but he could do some research. He was encouraged by the knowledge that someone had visited him in hospital, almost every day, at first, they said. A much older man, with grey hair. When Sam didn’t wake up, when it became clear that the man wasn’t a relative and when the real relatives had started querying his concern, he stopped coming. The ward sister thought he might have been someone connected with the accident that had put Sam in his coma in the first place.

 

They were all there, even the yellowing reports about the Moynihan case, which hadn’t been important enough to transfer to computer records. Sam was glad he’d met the officer at the station at a conference because it made the man disposed to be helpful. The station was the same, but the interior was altered out of all recognition and Sam shivered although the office where they were sitting was warm. It didn’t take long to pull up the records of Gene Hunt. He hadn’t had any further promotion, had taken early retirement not long after a bad car crash. He hadn’t been badly injured but kept raving about someone in the car with him and was considered a bit of an oddity after that. Not quite suitable material for the new style of policing. Suspected of gay tendencies, too, after some of the raving, which was hardly a recommendation for working under James Anderton.

 

After retirement he had opened a small kennels in Romiley. Took dogs and cats for short periods while their owners were on holiday and by all accounts ran the place well. Kept to himself and had lost touch with his former colleagues. There was no further information so Sam thanked his acquaintance and left.

 

A quick look at Yellow Pages and a visit to the kennels (shaking with hope and trembling with fear) elicited the news that Hunt had sold the business and moved to a bungalow in Marple. The new owners were happy to give the address to the nice young man who was looking for a friend of his father’s. Sam thought of telling them a few cautionary tales but didn’t. They had given him what he needed and he silently blessed their innocence and the fact that the data protection acts couldn’t stop the verbal exchange of information.

‘If you want to catch him you’d better look him up soon.’ The young woman was quite chatty, despite being in the middle of filling bowls with biscuit and meat. ‘He’s bought an apartment in Spain as well as the bungalow. Said he’d be going out for Christmas.’

‘It’s the 22nd now.’

‘What I said - he’ll be gone any day now. Must get on - it looks like snow.’

 

 

 

Sam drove out to Marple, relying on his in-car navigation system to find the road. The snow started as he inched through Romiley village, held up by people on their way to collect pampered kids from school, 4x4s predominating, in turn held up by kids on foot, crossing the roads without thought for traffic, waiting for the crossing wardens only when it suited them. By the time he reached Otterspool the snow was swirling and Marple was a strange white world. The road to the address he’d been given petered out and he parked and got out. An unadopted lane lay ahead, poorly surfaced, and narrow. There were numbers on all the houses and he wasn’t at his destination yet.

 

There was snow sliding coldly down the neck of his jacket, and his shoes weren’t what he’d have chosen for the lane, which was rapidly turning into a cross between a stream and a glacier. The woman had given him a phone number too, and whilst he’d wanted to find the house first it occurred to him that he should at least find out if anyone was in before he broke an ankle and died of hypothermia in a village street. He got his mobile out and entered the number with freezing fingers. As soon as the voice answered he was back in 1973 and desperate. He rang off without speaking and ran, heedless of the slush and the miniature potholes. Found the gate. Fumbled with the catch. Rang the doorbell as if his life depended on it. He thought it did.

 

When Gene opened the door Sam couldn’t take in the grey hair and the lines, even though he’d expected them. Gene, however, had no problems with recognition. His face lit up as he dragged Sam in out of the snow, into the light and warmth.

‘Got myself a toyboy?’ His voice was gruffer than ever, but full of hope and wonder.

‘Reckon I can get a last minute ticket to Spain?’ Sam’s answering grin was so wide he could feel his jaw creaking. And he grinned again when a soft questioning growl of doubt, quickly hushed by Gene, alerted him to the other occupant of the house - a small, feathery tailed Pekingese.

 

Fin.

 

 

 


End file.
